Greg Graffin quotes

Our faith should be expressed in working toward a better planet for our children and not the selfish, juvenile hope for a better afterlife for ourselves. I don't think anyone is going to Hell, because it only exists in the minds of people who wish ill will on others. (Greg Graffin)
The thread of culture that runs through the entire history of punk is also a dedication to challenging the authoritarian.
Greg Graffin
Naturalism teaches one of the most important things in this world. There is only this life, so live wonderfully and meaningfully.
Greg Graffin
I want some fact-based evidence about where we came from. Things we consider mysterious need not be attributed to a deity.
Greg Graffin
It's been an objective of mine since I started writing songs to include both intellect and energy.
Greg Graffin
"If God is everything and everywhere, then what purpose does the word serve? If it explains everything, then it explains nothing. But if it describes something important, then it should be observable by everyone, examined, and shared with other people" (Ch 8., pp.213).
Greg Graffin
I don't bill myself as an atheist but as a naturalist. Naturalism is a belief system. A lot of scientists bristle at that. We all have to believe we can find the truth. Evidence is my guide. I rely on observation, experimentation and verification.
Greg Graffin
You can't let your personal disposition be dictated by the world around you.
Greg Graffin
Whether you reach a lot of people or have a profound impact on a few people, their memories of you are your afterlife.
Greg Graffin
So much of the habitat destruction and pollution is based on the simple principle that we somehow have been given free license over other species to degrade the planet.
Greg Graffin
I've always been on a quest to use science in an artful way. (Greg Graffin)
I definitely was attracted to similar things in punk and science. They both depend on a healthy dose of skepticism.
Greg Graffin
A fossil is so powerful. It's moving. This is my ancestor. The naturalist is moved by the fossil... not the cross.
Greg Graffin
One of our great thematic traditions in Bad Religion has been to question human nature.
Greg Graffin
Folk music usually has an emphasis on the lyrics and melody. And those lyrics are usually relevant in some way. And it's populist in scope, which is also true of Bad Religion. So it's more meant to draw some parallels between the two. And I think even my voice and my delivery can be thought of as a little bit folky.
Greg Graffin
Unfortunately, the average guy on the street believes that studying evolution leads to atheism.
Greg Graffin
I was in a choir as a kid. It was from those early days that my outlook on harmonies and arrangements were nurtured. I always took that with me, even on the earliest Bad Religion record, which strangely was only about six years after that.
Greg Graffin
I would say there's a lot of similarity between folk and punk. It's written for the common man.
Greg Graffin
If you can believe in God, then you can believe in anything. It's a gang mentality.
Greg Graffin
I have great hope and faith, but it's a humanistic faith based in facts; you have to believe that facts exist. We can all arrive at the same facts if we engage in the process of experimentation, observation, and verification, which can solve more of the world's major problems than a debate over whether God does or doesn't exist.
Greg Graffin
I've written almost 200 songs with Bad Religion. No matter where you look in our history, the focus has been trying to instill some of these disturbing realities about the world, some of the implications of evolution into an artistic format that can be interpreted by people who may never study evolution. (Greg Graffin)
We delude ourselves into believing that morality comes from somewhere else, whereas in reality we behave as we've been told to behave.
Greg Graffin
You can't take up all the music bins at a CD retail outlet with Spice Girls CDs and leave nothing for the Joan Jett catalogue.
Greg Graffin
I'm saying that there were many great naturalists before Darwin's time who were very pious people and who knew more about nature than most of us. These were great naturalists; people I would admire for their knowledge of natural science given the time.
Greg Graffin
The vocal arrangements are a big part of the formula for a Bad Religion song - layered harmonies and background vocals. So when I start to describe the elements of Bad Religion's sound, it starts to sound like a Christmas choir.
Greg Graffin